1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an urinary incontinence device for use by a male to prevent urine discharge and to eliminate the necessity for any type of diaper. More particularly, the present invention is directed to a device that will maintain a position of the penis to prevent urine discharge as well as comfortably occlude the urethra of the penis to prevent urine from being uncontrollably evacuated in an undergarment and pants. The present invention can be made independent of the undergarment or may be integrally incorporated in the undergarment.
2. Description of the Prior Art
For many male adults, young and old, urinary incontinence is a very sensitive yet serious problem. Generally, incontinence is the inability of a person to control their bladder or bowel functions. More particularly, there is a serious problem of male penile urinary incontinence. Penile incontinence is very troublesome since the glands penis, when flaccid, allows urine to flow under gravity from the bladder through the prostatic urethra, the membranous urethra and the penile urethra into an undergarment and pants resulting in visual wetting. This means that urine is continuously dripping into the undergarment of the incontinent male. Laughing, sneezing and coughing greatly exacerbate the problems associated with urinary incontinence.
Urinary incontinence can result from old age, prostate or bladder surgery, spinal cord injuries, as well as diseases such as priapism and Pyronie's. No matter what the cause of the urinary incontinence, several differing techniques have been developed to either correct or ameliorate the symptoms resulting from penile incontinence.
Some urinary incontinence may be corrected using surgical techniques. Surgical techniques include the plication of the bulbocavernosus muscle; the Marshall-Marchetti technique for women; and sling techniques such as the Cooney and Horton technique for males where two strips of fascia are cut from the aponeurosis and are freed from the rectus fibers and positioned over the pubis and under the bulb of the urethra through a tunnel and tensioned to create a restriction in the urethra.
For males who may not have elective surgery possibly due to health complications or old age, and for those males where the urinary incontinence cannot be surgically corrected, there are very few options. If surgery is not an option for an adult incontinent, then there only remains the use of adult diapers to soak up the discharging urine. However, diapers are very annoying, costly, unsightly and obtrusive. For an active person, diapers are a nuisance. For any adult, having to wear a diaper can be unpleasant and embarrassing.
Diapers are also very undesirable because they are unsanitary. Despite significant research and development, diapers still allow the excreted fluid to remain in contact with the skin until a new diaper is applied. However, this is a serious problem for an incontinent person who is continuously excreting small amounts of urine. It would be necessary to continuously change the diaper to avoid rashes and skin irritations completely.
Some attempts have been made to minimize the problems associated with changing the diaper of an incontinent male. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,074,853, to Bryant, discloses a male incontinent diaper that is designed to minimize the exposure to wetness by not having adjacent body portions come in contact with the wet diaper. Accordingly, the diaper covers only the end of the penis and is secured to the shaft. Similar to the Bryant patent is U.S. Pat. No. 4,601,716, to Smith that also discloses a penis diaper.
The problem with these devices is that they allow the penis to continue to drip urine that will continue to contact the skin and cause rashes and irritation. Therefore there will necessarily be contact with a wet diaper.
It is also known in the prior art to use both inner and external catheters connected to bags for collecting the urine. Examples of these types of devices are shown in the products offered by ConvaTec, a Bristol Myers Squibb Company. This information is available via the internet at http://www.convatec.com. However, catheters, internal and external, as well as their appended baggage are sightly and troublesome. Furthermore, catheters are very constrictive and do not allow the wearer an active life style.
It should also be noted that it is possible to simply supply a "pinching" device which closes the urethral passage. A primitive example of this type of device is the human hand pinching the penis between the forefinger and the thumb. However, this is not very useful to an active person. A slight improvement over the human hand is the URO Flow Control device available from FDC, Inc. and shown on the internet at http://www.flashdistributor.com/uroflow.html. The URO Flow device is essentially a simple, plastic, u-shaped ring having a threaded screw and press plate. The u-shaped section is placed around the penis and a flat portion closes the legs of the u-shaped section. The press plate moves into the bight portion of the u-shaped section of the device via the threaded screw connected to the flat portion.
The URO Flow device has many drawbacks and potential safety problems. If the URO Flow device is tightened too much, circulation of blood within the penis can be unduly restricted. Furthermore, the URO Flow device does not allow for changing penis sizes in the event of arousal or thermal changes. Finally, the URO Flow device must be made with different size u-shaped sections to accommodate different size males. This adds significant cost to the product due to additional capital being required.
Accordingly, the prior art is lacking in many respects. In particular, the prior art nowhere discloses or teaches a device that will prevent the discharge of urine by occluding the urethra, without penile damage, in an incontinent male. Furthermore, the prior art nowhere discloses a device that can be used by an incontinent male who is active in sports and other endeavors. The prior art does not disclose or teach a device that is not sightly or complicated in its solution to the problem of urinary incontinence.